Decorations

Yesterday stars went up all along the street. This morning we saw them acquire wings. Christmas is strange.

We had a brilliant day. We hired a car to get to La cueva de la Pileta to see cave paintings of horses, deer and bulls - and one enormous fish - that were 32,000 and 22,000 years old. These numbers are too big for me to understand but I could imagine my Cro-Magnon forebears living under the vast limestone roofs, eroded by rivers and whirlpools, scrambling from one cavern to another by feel, seeing far less of the rock formations than we could with our paraffin and electric lamps.

Back outside again we were breathing wind, clear and fresh.

We went on to the Roman settlement of Acinipo, or 'old' Ronda. It is on top of the world, with immense vistas in every direction. The age of this place is easier to grasp, since it is only 2,000 years old. Its Roman theatre is still in use, though all around are piles of stones, each with just about enough to reconstruct a small house. Wandering around the heaps are horses and ewes with newborn lambs. Perhaps their forebears were kept by the painters of Pileta.